Migrant brides risk exploitation: study

IT was an arranged marriage that ended not in wedded bliss but with the 20-year-old bride forced to work in a brothel.

For two years, she gave her husband all her earnings, fearful of his threats to have her deported back to Egypt to face Islamic law for being a prostitute.

In another case a Thai bride ended up labouring in her husband's market garden for $40-50 per month. She was his sixth wife.

An Indian woman married an Indian-born Australian and was put to work cooking, cleaning and caring for his elderly parents and his brother's three young children.

These cases are in an Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) study that found some women coming to Australia as migrant brides are being trafficked for exploitation as sex workers or domestic servants.

The cases are distinct from traditional forms of trafficking where victims are coerced or deceived into sexual servitude or forced labour.

Many people come to Australia as partners or fiancees of citizens or permanent residents - 337,127 in the period 2001-11 - and two-thirds are female.

The study, that examined data and the specific cases of eight migrant women, said those being exploited were commonly placed in a position of dependency due to their tenuous legal status.

It said objections to mistreatment were met with deportation threats.

Victims also experienced verbal and sexual abuse, were denied funds and medical care and were controlled and had their movements monitored by their erstwhile husbands.

The AIC said it was the first study to confirm marriage had been used to attract women to Australia for exploitation, but it did not say how many may have been recruited.